Last month, a team of seven Rye High School students participated in the 2023 Westchester County Envirotho at Mountain Lakes Park in North Salem. Twenty-two teams from different public and private high schools in Westchester and Putnam counties tested their knowledge in several environmental fields, such as land use, aquatic ecology, forestry, soil chemistry, and climate change. The Envirothon was cosponsored by the Westchester County Soil and Water Conservation District (a subdivision of the Westchester County Planning Department) and Department of Parks, Recreation and Conservation.
Rye High School’s team was led by senior captain Delia Bajuk and finished seventh in overall scoring. Other team members included Oliver Meier, Philip Seidell, Andrew Chun, Dean Kim, Bill Chen, and Brendan Chapman. All of these students are a part of the Science Olympiad program at RHS.
“They had a really nice presentation on sustainability, and they had to do an oral presentation,” Rye High School chemistry teacher and Science Olympiad advisor Sally Mitchell said. “They had [a total of] six events — it was really fun. It was a fun day.”
As for specific competitions, the team finished tied for fourth in aquatics, tied for eighth in current issue, tied for fourth in soil, tied for third in wildlife, eleventh in oral presentation, and first in forestry. This was Rye High School’s second year participating in the Envirothon.
The Science Olympiad program at RHS is always thriving and with four tenth graders on this year’s team, more success at future Envirothon events is expected.
“[Students] don’t get exposure to any of this unless they do competitions and that’s why we do a Science Olympiad program and these other competitions,” Mitchell said. “It’s above and beyond. It’s learning at the best way possible.”
